Sikh Guru killed in Vienna : Unrest in Punjab

Sant Rama Nand, the head of an Indian Sikh sect, Dera Sacha Khand, had been killed in an assault by members of a rival fundamentalist Sikh group yesterday in Vienna. The police described the murder as a well planned attack.

Vienna police spokesman Michael Takacs said that a full investigation was on in the case in which at least 16 people were wounded, some of them seriously.

The attack has sparked off widespread riots in parts of northern India, where the followers of Sant Rama Nand, associate head of the Jalandhar-based Dera Sacha Khand, took to the streets to protest the killing of the preacher.

Nand, one of the two visiting preachers, died of his wounds in hospital. Six of the attackers, who were later apprehended and roughed up by the devotees, are also lodged in hospital with serious injuries.

Meanwhile, curfew has been imposed in many towns of Punjab as protesters turned violent. Union Home Minister Chidambaram has rushed 2500 paramilitary troops to Punjab to contain the situation there.